Examining Tuskegee, Part 1

In reading Part 1 of Susan Reverby’s Examining Tuskegee, I was completely floored when examining the language of the discourse between freedmen and the medical “professionals” who entrusted to their care. It was very telling of the power dynamic that still existed. Those who were desperate enough to actually seek medical care recounted that they often weren’t even told what was wrong. I believe that this is paralleled even in today’s society where there is a general fear that I’ve noticed among older African Americans of color. A trip to the hospital is only made if it is absolutely necessary. In one account (p. 32), a woman said that all she was told was that she had “bad blood”. Withholding medical information and actual diagnoses kept the doctors in power and didn’t help patients with solutions if they were to fall ill again. Another key point that struck me was the language involved in these diagnoses. Terms like “bad blood”, “negro blood”, and the “sanitary sins” that the immoral race allegedly performed. With the validation of the medical community, the internalized prejudiced views of Southerners was in the media with full fervor. A doctor from Mississippi said miscegenation “would spread the immorality and diseases of pure Negro and would eventually Africanize this country with a Frankenstein monster.” (p. 26) This kind of language from medical professionals surely had to affirm the “concerns” of the white public. Similar to the demonization of Mexican and Japanese people, syphilis became racialized as a typically Negro problem. Black people were described as “unmoral and prodigal” (p. 27). Turning the issue of widespread syphilis into a moral rather than medical issue put the responsibility and blame on African Americans. This abuse of power truly highlighted one of the hardest parts of being a minority. Healthcare and the right to live without disease may not have been completely stripped from them but by making it inaccessible or placing it in a toxic environment, many people of color had basically received a death sentence.